Morning sunlight, like scattered flecks of flowing gold, spilled through the floor-to-ceiling windows, bathing the entire building in the soft, hazy glow of dawn.
Tang Qingye slowly awoke in the woman's richly fragrant boudoir, his consciousness gradually emerging from sleep.
Low emotional intelligence: dazed from sleep.
High emotional intelligence: dazed by her fragrance.
He instinctively leaned to his side, wanting to sink back into the warmth of last night's embrace, but the place beside him was already empty.
The bedding still retained a lingering warmth, proving she had not been gone long.
Rubbing his bleary eyes, he got out of bed. Before he had even left the bedroom, a muffled bang came from somewhere in the distance, and the entire villa seemed to tremble slightly.
Startled, Tang Qingye hurried toward the sound.
The sight before him left him stunned. Leng Yaozhu, usually so cool and commanding, stood helplessly beside the stove, a little black ash clinging to her hair. This was her first attempt at cooking in her life.
The kitchen stove was a complete mess, and a thick, choking smell of burnt food hung in the air.
Several plates of finished dishes sat on the dining table, each filled with charred black lumps. It was impossible to tell what ingredients they had originally been. Everything had burned into blackened clumps, leaving the dishes utterly unrecognizable, as though they had been scorched by Heavenly Phoenix fire.
"Master, you're cooking?"
At the sound of her disciple's voice, Leng Yaozhu stiffened slightly and instinctively turned her face aside, her gaze shifting away. A barely perceptible blush quietly spread across the tips of her ears. It was clearly the guilty unease of someone caught in an embarrassing predicament, yet she still stubbornly maintained her usual proud bearing.
She raised a hand to smooth